


Bring Your Own Bombs

by misura



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (Though Neither Hux Nor Poe Finds It Very Convenient - Or Do They?), Armitage Hux Has No Chill, Denial of Feelings, Fake Marriage, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Real Murder Attempts, Sharing a Bed, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: When Hux keeps getting almost-assassinated, Resistance leadership comes up with the perfect solution: get fake-married to Poe.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Comments: 31
Kudos: 109
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Bring Your Own Bombs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



People kept trying to kill Hux. It was a little annoying, but then, it wasn't as if years of being in the First Order hadn't left Hux with a healthy sense of paranoia.

Thus, when the Resistance's 'generals' called a meeting to discuss the problem, Hux's first impulse was to not show up.

(His second, to wear body armor and bring a blaster, except that he already did that all the time anyway, so.)

Five minutes in, Hux realized he should have gone with his first instinct.

"This is ridiculous," he said, because it was. So what if Hux wasn't popular? He hadn't turned spy to become _popular_ ; he'd done it because Kylo Ren was a terrible leader with terrible leadership skills and a terrible personality.

The Resistance didn't have much of a leadership either, but, well, beggars, choosers.

"I agree," Poe said. Poe had a terrible personality. Hux couldn't imagine why anyone would think it a good idea to put Poe in charge of anything. The fact that someone had and that the Resistance had won the day in the fact made no difference to this assessment; it simply went to show that people got lucky sometimes. "I mean, there's been, what, a dozen attempts in the past month alone? You'd think at least one of them would've succeeded."

"Not helping," Finn said. There, at least, Hux was willing to admit some leadership skills were evident. Of course, that was only thanks to the Stormtrooper program - not that he expected Finn to ever admit that. No, it all had to be 'natural talent' or something.

"Well, there's an idea," Poe said. "I shoot him, you hide his body. Problem solved."

"Try. Please," Hux said.

"I think we need to make a statement," Finn said, ignoring both of them. Given that Poe's hands were nowhere near his blaster, Hux supposed that was fair enough, even if it still annoyed him. "You know, something big and splashy that we broadcast to lots of planets saying that hey, anyone touches Hux, they're touching us. And they're not going to like what happens next."

Poe grimaced. Hux would have done the same, except that Poe'd already beaten him to it. "Like what?"

"You know, like a big party. When's your birthday?" Finn asked.

"None of your business," Hux said, at the same time Poe said, "Eight months and a couple of weeks from now," which was correct.

Hux felt faintly betrayed.

"All right, so how about a wedding? Or an engagement party? There gotta be something," Finn said.

"I'm not - " Hux started saying, while Poe said, "This guy? Come on, who in their right mind would ever want to - " and then Finn and Poe sort of looked at each other very intensely for a couple of very long minutes, until Poe looked away and said, "I hate you sometimes, you know that."

"No, you don't," Finn said, slapping his shoulder. "C'mon, it'll be great."

 _Optimists,_ Hux thought. _I'm surrounded by optimists and crazy people._

The actual 'wedding' did little to change his mind.

"Are we sure someone hasn't poisoned the cake?" Hundreds of Resistance members in one place: a golden opportunity if Hux had ever seen one.

"Yes, we're sure. Can you please stop asking things like that?" Poe'd dressed up for the occasion, which made him look even more ridiculous than usual. "Try to smile."

Hux smiled the smile he'd perfected during years of being in charge. Poe shuddered, which made Hux feel better, except then Finn walked in to tell them it was time to 'get this party started'.

"Dibs on the bed," Poe said.

Hux would have happily left him to it: the way he felt, he could have passed out on the floor and never mind what state he'd wake up in tomorrow, except that Poe hadn't asked. Poe'd made a statement, as if Hux was just expected to agree, to roll over and accept whatever Poe decided.

"No," he said. If nobody had thought to put in a second bed, Hux didn't see why he should be the one to pay for that oversight.

"I'm not sleeping on the floor," Poe said, sounding perfectly willing to make an argument of it.

Hux wondered where Poe even found the energy. Hux had spent the better part of the day shaking people's hands and smiling his fake-happy smile and listening to jokes about what a catch Poe was, all the while being on the look-out for assassins and would-be evil-doers. It had been exhausting, especially since he'd felt obliged to also keep an eye out for Poe, who was, after all, Hux's responsibility now, more or less, and in spite of Hux's personal feelings about him.

"I'm not sleeping on the floor either," he said.

Poe stared at him for a bit, but Hux wasn't Finn, so Hux did not experience any sudden, silent communication. He did notice some things he hadn't noticed about Poe's eyes before, for all the good that would do him.

"So, what? You want to share?" Poe did not sound enthusiastic about the prospect, which made two of them.

 _I'd rather -_ Hux wanted to say, before he realized he really, really wanted to just lie down and forget this whole day had even happened. He forced himself not to sneer. "Why not?"

Nobody murdered them in their sleep: a lost opportunity if Hux had ever seen one, and further proof that all his would-be assassins were incompetent idiots, not that Hux had needed additional confirmation.

He woke up with Poe sort of curled up around him, warm and solid and surprisingly comfortable, apart from the bit where Hux loathed the man and Poe loathed him right back, and also Hux needed some breakfast, so.

"So I think that went well," Finn said, having joined them at breakfast. He and Poe kept not looking at each other. Hux would have felt cheered at this indication of a possible disagreement within the Resistance leadership, except that _he_ was part of the Resistance now, so he felt annoyed instead.

"Yeah," Poe said. "Great idea, buddy."

"I think it was a pretty good one, actually," Finn said.

"If you say so," Poe said.

"I do. I do say so. And if you disagree, you can just ... do that."

Hux had sat through a number of budget meetings where former allies had turned on one another for the sake of a bigger cut. Compared to that, this was pathetic, like Poe and Finn weren't even trying.

"Thank you so much for your permission," Poe said, aggressively drinking his caf.

"You're welcome," Finn said, aggressively not drinking his caf.

Hux wondered what would happen if he were to shoot them both and provide the Resistance with some actual leadership.

He kept wondering right until the moment Poe told him, "So Leia wants us to - " and Hux sort of stopped listening to the rest of the sentence, because -

"General Organa is alive?" Hux's sources had been very clear. Supposedly, her death had had something to do with Kylo Ren, and Hux had sat there for a while, thinking that of course it did, all the bad things that had ever happened to him had had to do with Kylo bloody Ren, so why should this be an exception?

"Well, we're not supposed to call her that anymore, but sure," Poe said.

Hux toyed with the idea of it being a lie, a ruse. It didn't seem likely. "That's - a surprise."

"A good one or a bad one?"

Hux realized that Poe sounded like he genuinely wanted to know, like Hux's opinion mattered to him somehow, on this of all topics.

"Just a surprise," he said, not wanting to give Poe the satisfaction of an actual answer.

Poe muttered something under his breath and resumed telling Hux about their mission.

Another surprise, except not: their room once again only had one bed in it.

"This is ridiculous," Hux said. He knew plenty of married people didn't share a bed.

"Afraid you'll catch cooties?" Poe asked. For one wild moment, Hux wondered if maybe Poe had arranged this, was deliberately trying to get Hux into bed with him, to seduce him to the dark side with cuddling and maybe, eventually, an offer of carnal pleasure.

Thankfully, reason reasserted itself before he could translate any of those suspicions into words or actions.

"Oh, please. Like you're any happier about this than I am." Poe was an idiot, but Hux hoped that he wasn't enough of one to insist they shared a bed simply because Hux had been the first to admit out loud that he didn't want to.

Poe shrugged. "Hey, if that's what it takes to convince people we're married, that's what it takes."

Hux tried to slowly counted to ten. Times like these, he missed the First Order. Yes, Kylo Ren had been bad, but there had also been good things, good days, when he could have ordered people killed and the only question anyone would have asked was, 'do you have a preferred method of execution?'.

Not, probably, that he would have ordered Poe killed. Hux might regret saving Poe's life back when, but, well. He hadn't known then what he knew now, and besides, Poe hadn't been alone. Saving Poe's life had been a package deal. Nothing personal.

"I think we could probably use other methods for that."

Poe lay claim to a disproportionate portion of the bed. "Yeah? Like what? You want to hold hands in public and call each other pet names, stuff like that?"

Hux gave Poe a look. Magical, wordless understanding once again failed to occur.

"What?" Poe said.

"I've worked as a spy, you fool," Hux said. "Obviously, I can trick people into thinking I'm something I'm not. It's easy. People are idiots."

"Well, all right then," Poe said.

They talked to some local people with a vermin problem (literal, actual vermin) while holding hands, and then they went and talked to some merchants with a piracy problem while referring to one another as 'Poe dear' and 'Huggiehugs' and then they went and talked to some farmers with no problem at all that Hux could see while acting like normal, sensible people who'd called a truce, and then someone tried to kill Poe.

Several weeks of no one trying to kill him had lulled Hux into a true sense of security. He suspected the lack of assassins had a lot less to do with the fake wedding and a lot more to do with the bit where he and Poe were travelling all over the galaxy, often with only a handful of people knowing where they were at any given moment.

When someone shot at Poe, Hux's first thought was that in terms of incompetence, this took the cake. Someone ought to do something, have a sit-down with whoever kept sending these assassins and explain to them the meaning of such terms as 'comprehensive mission briefing', 'acceptable collateral damage' and 'making sure you kill the right person, like maybe you could give people a picture or something, how about that'.

Hux let the righteous anger flow through him. It felt great. Better yet, anyone who shot at Poe was clearly fair game to be shot at in return, so Hux felt no compunction in doing so.

Poe had gone down and wasn't doing much of anything, so once again, it was all up to Hux. Typical, really: when the Resistance had needed extra time to evacuate, they'd called Hux. When the Resistance had needed information, Hux had called them. And now this.

One of these days, someone ought to realize they should just put Hux in charge of this circus.

Today, evidently, was not going to be that day.

"You know, when you're trying to shoot someone, it helps when you aim first."

Given that Poe hadn't done any shooting at all, Hux felt this was a bit much. "Is that what you were doing? My apologies, from where I was standing, it looked like you were busy being too injured to be of any use."

"I didn't - " Poe started, then amended whatever he'd been going to say to, "Last time I was here, I made some enemies. I wasn't expecting them to remember me. Sorry."

"What did you do: fake marry them and then keep them up all night by snoring?"

Poe shifted his position a bit. They were in bed, and it was dark, but somehow, Hux realized he could picture the expression on Poe's face with perfect clarity. "What snoring? I was a spice runner. Well, pretending to be one, anyway. Trust me, I'm not in the habit of fake marrying people. Or snoring."

"A spice runner," Hux repeated.

"See? You're not the only one with experience at pretending to be something you're not," Poe said.

"I think that if people are going to try to kill you, we should get a divorce."

"Hey," Poe said, "you shoot anyone trying to shoot me, and I shoot anyone trying to shoot you. Sounds like a fair deal to me. I mean, that's what marriage is supposed to be, isn't it? A partnership. Having each other's backs, no matter what."

Hux sighed. He knew, he just knew, that he was going to wake up tomorrow morning with Poe all over him again, like it wasn't all a lie, a trick - one that wasn't even doing what it had been intended to do.

Getting fake married to Poe hadn't made Hux any safer. It hadn't made his life any easier. It _had_ gotten him more involved in the running of the Resistance, not that that seemed the right term, given that there was nothing to resist. There were just people with problems. Chaos and disorder and nobody in charge to make decisions with the power to make sure people did as they were told.

"Are you saying we're partners now?" Hux asked.

"We're definitely not partners," Poe said. "I'm just saying, we could be. If you weren't - who you are."

Hux decided this conversation was highly unconstructive. "Is this your way of asking me for sex?"

"This is my way of saying thanks for saving my life," Poe said.

"Again," Hux said.

Poe said nothing for a while. Hux waited, counting down slowly until he reached one and Poe said, "Again," making it sound like he hated it, hated acknowledging that he'd needed Hux today, and before today, even though Hux knew that wasn't true, because Poe didn't work like that.

Hux stared up at where he assumed the ceiling to be. He wondered where his life had gone wrong enough for him to end up in a place like this.

"So about that sex thing," Poe said.


End file.
